


Five Love Affairs

by irisbleufic



Category: Batman: Europa
Genre: Archetypes, Batman Europa, Canon-Typical Violence, Comic Book Violence, Dreams and Nightmares, Enemies, Heroes & Heroines, Inspired by Poetry, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Pablo Neruda's Poetry, Prompt Fic, Psychological Trauma, Superheroes, Supervillains, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 12:37:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10465206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irisbleufic/pseuds/irisbleufic
Summary: If you remember nothing else, you must remember this.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written in response to a reader's prompt: _Pablo Neruda's[Sonnet XVII](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49236)—"Between the shadow and the soul."_ Originally posted to LJ in September of 2008; I never archived this here. The resurgence of interest brought on by _Lego Batman Movie_ might make this relevant. I also read _Batman: Europa_ for the first time the other night and did a double-take looking back on this piece; it's an unusually close tonal and thematic fit, so I don't see any reason not to establish a retroactive link.

**Certain Dark Things**

Bruce is not proud that his nightmares have minds of their own.

They burst into his waking hours without mercy, a relentless barrage of fury, fear, and endless leathery wings. They inform his every breath, his every word, his every step—and they dictate the way in which he falters, the precise pattern in which he staggers and bleeds. They govern the tides of his pain, each crest higher and fiercer than the one before. Sleep, when it comes, is restless and, of necessity, drugged.

In his fretful slumber, Bruce dreams of countless terrible deeds.

He robs those who beg him for help of their lives, at last too shattered and simply _too tired_ to care. He slices and strangles, kicks and crushes. He lets them fall to their untimely ends, whether in steel-fraught wreckage or splayed upon dust-weathered stone.

Bruce is not proud that the last of these certain dark things are _true_.

 

 

**Rises From the Earth**

When he arrives out of nowhere, rises from the earth, you don't know whether you're falling or flying. _He's_ flying, gliding, but _you_? Are mesmerized, bound to the spot. Time and again, you ask him if he would be so kind as to hit you.

 _You know that he wants it, know that he wants_ you. _These are the tricks of the trade._

Sometimes, he's even so good as to oblige. Most of the time, though, you know he's indulging some gruesome pet fantasy: he thinks that he's better than this. He thinks that his trip-wires and gadgets are _merciful_ , and he thinks that sparing you any _major_ broken bones is always worth the effort. Such a perfectionist, your dear wayward Bat.  He's so faultlessly conscientious that it's _almost funny_.

_You remember what it feels like: that body, that breath. You remember having him._

This time, it looks as though he might honor your request. Such a _gentleman_. Three steps' advance on him and _smack_ , there it is, _right_ upside the head—followed by one arm slid around your neck and there, ta-da, you're _down_. And he follows you, oh, he _does_.

How nice, when one's wayward _lover_ returns. Yes, he still hates hearing it, and _yes_ , he's only too glad to hit you again. His weight and his warmth are distracting. Blood clouds your vision, but you can see his mouth.

_You remember his kisses: harsh, unyielding. You remember dying._

 

 

**Don't Know Any Other Way**

And Bruce will kill Joker again, blow upon blow, because once is _not enough_.

There's blood on Bruce's gloves, but he continues, unrelenting. No words can describe the horror of _this_ particular nightmare made flesh, and _still_ he keeps on going. He's known ever since that afternoon, by ladder and rooftop and all his _wretched_ foolishness, that there will never be any fate sufficient to repay this monster for what he's done. Never mind the fact that Bruce had, perhaps, deserved it.

The punishment had _not_ fit the crime and had, in its failing, become the crime itself.

Laughter: the bastard is mocking him, _hounding_ him still. Even through ruined lips and in spite of both split brows, this madman speaks to him, praises him, _pleads_ with him. It's only then that Bruce stops and forces himself to roll away, panting hard as he glares into the glimmering wet asphalt. There is failure here, a failure _so deep_ that even to claim they don't know any other way would mean—

What comes down is no more than he had expected and no less than he deserves.

 

 

**Your Eyes That Close**

_Knowing what you want and knowing how to get it are two entirely different things._

You're bent over Batman now, and it's _your_ eyes that close. The blood that's everywhere is yours—but then, that's not so new. You've grown _accustomed_ to this sort of...thing. Affair. _Fling_. Whatever the hell it is that's going on here, because somehow, you're beginning to have your doubts about what you always _thought_ was the point. The Bat tenses under you when you lick your lips. _Good boy_.

_The question now is if you can stand this, if you can drink your fill and return._

No drugs, no restraints, and no _inquiries_ made. Bothering to ask is nothing but trouble, so you just get on with it and hope for the best. Even through all that fucking armor, he's just as warm as you remember: and that's the very thing you _cannot_ forget.

Any moment now, your head will be spinning again with the pain of the blow that's surely coming. But in the meanwhile—

_It's your eyes that close, and there is no escaping, ever, from this moment._

 

 

**Between the Shadow and the Soul**

_For this is the space between the shadow and the soul, and neither of us, no matter how hard we try, can forget it. There is no moment but this, in which there is no you and no me, and that old story about your hand upon my chest? Forget it._

_Remember only that I will destroy you as I have so longed for my own destruction. One or none: what difference does this fractured eternity make? Turn the corner and it will find us; cut our bonds and we are only as free as this fragile, captured space in time permits._

_If you remember nothing else, you must remember this._


End file.
